


Talk

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 21:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17169848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Jack talks to David about his father, who is on his death bed.





	Talk

Anonymous asked  
Hurt/comfort - David and Jack talk about Jack's father. (Possibly because Jack is sick, upset, or particularly miserable for whatever reason, and is having more feels than usual.)  
Notes: Intense Javid and intense angst in this one. Have fun.

Jack was sitting alone on the steps of the lodge smoking a cigarette when David came outside. He’d left the poker game an hour ago, putting up his hand to stop David when he tried to follow, saying he was just grabbing something and would be right back. 

Inviting David to poker games and leaving so that he would follow was practically a tradition between them. Jack had known that he wouldn’t be able to stave it off indefinitely.

David sat down close to Jack, but it was a few minutes before he opened his mouth. That’s how Jack knew that he knew. 

“How’s your cigarette?” David asked.

“You wanna have a taste?” Jack challenged, pushing it in David’s face. He made a face and shoved Jack’s hand away. 

“Don’t do that.” 

Jack rolled his eyes. “The other fellas tell you all about the letter?” 

“Racetrack did. Then Mush said he was worried about you. Snipes said you would get over it, and Tumbler expressed surprise at the fact that you even have a father. You told everybody other than me. News travels fast around these parts.”

Jack crossed his arms over his knees and leaned forward. Of course David would play the you told everybody but me card, like he’d had a choice in the matter. The other boys saw everything, and it wasn’t like somebody getting a piece of mail was a normal thing. Jack wasn’t even the first person to read the news that Jack’s father was on his death bed at that stinking prison, and asking for him for some stupid reason that Jack couldn’t even begin to figure out. Racetrack had been the first to snatch the letter up, and the first to look pale and worried as he read the news.

 

“I didn’t tell nobody,” Jack said. “They was just there when the letter came in. If you’re gonna lecture me for keeping it from you, you can just go back inside.” 

“And what if I wasn’t planning on lecturing you in the first place? Could I stay then?” 

Jack shrugged. He took another drag of his cigarette. He didn’t believe that David’s plan hadn’t been to lecture him. Probably he was just lying in wait. David wrapped his arm around Jack’s waist.

They just sat there quietly for a time, but Jack could practically hear David’s mind buzzing with questions. Probably it was killing him not to ask.

“You ready to start the interrogation?” Jack asked after a while. David looked like he’d just slapped him.

“No,” David said, like Jack had been an idiot for asking. Jack jerked away from him.

“There was one thing I wanted to ask,” David said.

“Yeah?” 

“Well… not ask so much as offer,” David placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder, moving cautiously, like he was afraid of hurting him. “Do you want me to come with you? To see him? Not because I want to… I mean, I want to do what you need me to do, and if you don’t want to go alone I’m willing to come along.” 

Jack looked at David. He was serious, Jack could tell. He wondered if David would still be making that offer if he knew anything about his father. The awful thing was that he probably would be. Sometimes David had no common sense. 

“Nah,” Jack said, trying to sound casual while everything inside him was straining and threatening to rip apart. “That’s okay. I wouldn’t want him to see you. Folks aren’t always so dependable about dying, even when they’s sick and they oughta be. I don’t want him to know your face, in case he gets better or something.” The last few words came out sharper than Jack had meant them to, but they were important. David had to stay away from people like Jack’s father. Jack never wanted him to get mixed up in that kind of mess. Not ever.

“Okay…” David said slowly, in a way that was almost worse than the dozens of questions that he , for some weird ass manipulative reasons, just wasn’t asking. 

“He’d kill you just as soon as look at you, and that was if he liked you. If he didn’t he’d make sure you liked him back, then make you wish you was dead. He had a way of getting in people’s heads, you know?”

David nodded like he did know, even though Jack knew that wasn’t possible. David didn’t know about people like Jack’s father. 

“Sometimes I worry I’m kinda like him. Like when I tell the other guys to do something and they just do it. Or that one time…” Jack paused, looking up at the sky. He didn’t like to talk about this. “That time when I scabbed,” he said, his voice forcibly level. “The guys was really upset then. Especially Mush. I could probably do something really bad to him if I wanted to. It’d be real easy. I wouldn’t even have to want to. It could just happen.” 

“But you wouldn’t let something like that happen,” David said firmly, rubbing Jack’s shoulder as he spoke. “Because you aren’t your father. You’re a lot more likely to help your friends out of a tight spot than you are to screw them over.” 

Jack shrugged. He hadn’t really expected Dave to say anything else, but there were a lot of things that David didn’t know, like how to be afraid of anything or anybody. 

“You don’t have to go see him,” David said. 

“Yeah? What’d you think of somebody who refused to go see his father on his deathbed, huh?” 

David made a face, “It’d depend on the father. Besides, we’re not talking about a hypothetical somebody. We’re talking about you. Go see him if you need to do it for yourself, and let him rot if you’re thinking of doing it for his sake.”

Jack rested his head in his hands. He’d been really damn tired these last couple of days. Just really damn tired. The way David was rubbing his back felt good. David felt good.

“I’m not going to go see him,” Jack said.

“Okay.” 

Jack took a deep breath, and just let himself sit there for a while, savoring the lie that he wouldn’t be heading off to the state penitentiary in the morning to pay his final respects to a man who he didn’t respect at all.


End file.
